The Iowa Writers’ Workshop partnered with the Iowa Summer Writing Festival to host a one-hour panel discussion on July 17 about earning an MFA in creative writing at any age. The panel comprised graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop who came to the program at different ages, some earlier in life, others having already established lives, families, and careers. In the video of the event below, Tameka Cage Conley (’18), Tom Corcoran (’14), Sasha Khmelnik (’17), and Kevin Smith (’16) talk and answer questions about their overall experiences, the benefits and challenges of attending graduate school earlier or later in life, what it was like to be in workshop, what it was like to manage school and family, and what the MFA experience offered them in the end.

This discussion took place as part of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival’s Eleventh Hour series (https://iowasummerwritingfestival.org/eleventh-hour ), a free and public event that occurs weekdays during the Festival. The Eleventh Hour series addresses issues of special interest to writers, including aspects of craft, process, the writing life, and publishing.